man, recourse is had to language which can fitly be used only in our hymns and praises to the supreme Lord of our destinies, the eternal Creator, Redeemer, and Comforter, the only wise God our Saviour.

Address to Thomas.

1. Hail, Thomas, Rod of Justice!

2. The brightness of the world.

3. The strength of the Church.

4. The love of the people: the delight of the Clergy.

5. Hail, glorious Guardian of the Flock. Save those who rejoice in thy glory.

Language of Scripture.

1. There shall come a rod out of the stem of Jesse. Ye denied the Holy One, and the Just.Isaiah xi. 1. Acts iii. 14.

2. The brightness of his glory. I am the light of the world.Heb. i. 3. John viii. 12.

3. I can do all things through Christ, that strengtheneth me. Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it.—Phil. iv. 13. Eph. v. 25.

4. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Delight thyself in the Lord. -Eph. vi. 24. Ps. xxxvii. 4.

5. Our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep. Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel; come and save us. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.-Heb. xiii. 20. Psalm lxxx. [lxxix.] 1. 1 Cor.

i. 31.

Can that worship become the disciples of the Gospel and the Cross, which addresses such prayers and such praises to the spirit of a mortal man? Every prayer, and every form of praise here used in honour of Thomas Becket, it would well become Christians to offer to the Giver of all good, trusting solely and exclusively to the mediation of Christ Jesus our Lord for acceptance; and pleading only the merits of his most precious blood.

And yet I am bound to confess, that in principle, in spirit, and in fact, I can find no substantial difference between this service of Thomas of Canterbury, and the service which all in communion with the Church of Rome are under an obligation to use even at the present hour.

This point remains next for our inquiry, and we will draw from the well-head. I would, however, first suggest the application of a general test for ascertaining the real bona-fide nature of these prayers and praises. The test I would apply is, to try with the change only of the name, substituting the holiest name ever named in heaven or in earth for the name of Thomas of Canterbury-whether these prayers and praises should not be offered to the Supreme Being alone through the atoning merits of his Blessed Son; whether they are not exclusively appropriate to HIM.

forth with miracles'; restoring sight to the blind2; walking to the lame; hearing to the deaf; speech to the dumb; cleansing to the lepers'; making the paralytic sound; healing the dropsy; and all kinds of incurable diseases"; restoring the dead to

life1; in a wonderful manner commanding the devils, and all the elements 3. He put forth his hand to unwonted and unheard-of signs of his own power 1.

Do thou, O Lord, by the blood of

(Thomas)
Christ J

cause us

to ascend whither

S Thomas
l Christ

has ascended.

O Thomas,

send help to us. Guide those who stand ;

O God, raise up those who fall; correct our morals, actions, and life; and guide us into the way of

peace.

Hail,

[Thomas!
Jesus!

Rod of Justice, the Brightness of the

world, the Strength of the Church, the Love of the people, the Delight of the Clergy. Hail, Glorious Guardian of the flock! Save Thou those who delight in Thy glory.

We shall apply this same test to many of the collects and prayers used, and of necessity to be used, because they are authorized and appointed, even at the present day, in the ministrations of the Church of Rome. The impiety in many of those instances is not couched in such startling language; but it is not the less real. God forbid that we should charge our fellow-creatures with idolatry, who declare that they offer divine worship to the Supreme Being only; or that we should pronounce any professed Christian to have cast off his

Luke viii. 43. 55. 3 Luke viii. 25.

2 Matt. viii. 16.

+ Mark ii. 12. John ix. 30.

dependence on the merits of Christ alone, who assures us that he looks for mercy only through those merits. But I know and feel, that according to the standard of Christian truth, and of the pure worship of Almighty God, which the Scriptures and primitive antiquity compel me to adopt, I should stain my own soul with the guilt of idolatry, and with the sin of relying on other merits than Christ's, were I myself to offer those prayers.

That this service excited much disgust among the early reformers, we learn from various writers1. On the merits of the struggle between Becket and his king; on the question of Becket's moral and religious worth, (a question long and often discussed among the exercises of the masters of Paris in the full assembly of the Sorbonne 2,) or on the motives which influenced Henry the Eighth, I intend not to say one word: those points belong not to our present inquiry. It may not, however, be thought irrelevant here to quote a passage

See Mornay 'De la Messe,' Saumur, 1604. p. 826. Becon, in his "New Year's Gift," London, 1564, p. 183, thus speaks: "What saint at any time thought himself so pure, immaculate, and without all spot of sin, that he durst presume to die for us, and to avouch his death to be an oblation and sacrifice for our lives to God the Father, except peradventure we will admit for good payment these and such like blasphemies, which were wont full solemnly to be sung in the temples unto the great ignominy of the glorious name of God, and the dishonour of Christ's most precious blood." Then quoting the lines from the service of Thomas Becket, on which we have above commented, he adds, "I will let pass many more which are easy to be searched and found out." Becon preached and wrote in the reign of Henry VIII. and was then persecuted for his religion, as he was afterwards in the reign of Mary.

2 We are told that forty-eight years after his death, the masters of Paris disputed whether Thomas was a condemned sinner, or admitted into heaven.

from the ordinance of this latter monarch for erasing Becket's service out of the books, and his name from the calendar of the saints.

In Henry the Eighth's proclamation, dated Westminster, 16th November, in the thirtieth year of his reign, printed by Bertholet, is the following very curious passage:

"ITEM, for as moche as it appereth now clerely, that Thomas Becket, sometyme Archbyshop of Canterburie, stubburnly to withstand the holsome lawes establyshed agaynste the enormities of the clergie, by the kynges highness mooste noble progenitour, kynge HENRY the Seconde, for the common welthe, reste, and tranquillitie of this realme, of his frowarde mynde fledde the realme into Fraunce, and to the bishop of Rome, mayntenour of those enormities, to procure the abrogation of the sayd lawes, whereby arose moch trouble in this said realme, and that his dethe, which they untruely called martyrdome, happened upon a reskewe by him made, and that, as it is written, he gave opprobrious wordes to the gentyllmen, whiche than counsayled hym to leave his stubbernesse, and to avoyde the commocion of the people, rysen up for that rescue. And he not only callyd the one of them bawde, but also toke Tracy by the bosome, and violently shoke and plucked hym in suche maner, that he had almoste overthrowen hym to the pavement of the Churche; so that upon this fray one of their company, perceivynge the same, strake hym, and so in the thronge Becket was slayne. And further that his canonization was made onely by the bysshop of Rome, bycause he had ben a champion of maynteyne his usurped auctoritie, and a bearer of the iniquitie of the clergie, for these and for other great and urgent causes, longe to recyte, the Kynge's